The US Lower House approved last Wednesday, May 18, a bill to increase the fight against domestic terrorism days after the racist shooting in the New York town of Buffalo, in which ten people died, most of them African-Americans.
The initiative, baptized “The Prevention of Domestic Terrorism Act of 2022”, was approved with 222 votes in favor and 203 against.
With that they propose the creation of specialized units in the FBI and in the departments of Justice and Homeland Security to track and investigate possible threats of domestic terrorism, including racist and white supremacist groups.
After its approval in the Lower House, with a Democratic majority, the bill now goes to the Senate.
The measure faces an uncertain future in the upper house because Democrats have a very narrow majority and would need the support of Republicans to get past a procedural vote to debate the initiative.
(Read more: ‘Racially Motivated’ Shooting Leaves 10 Dead at US Supermarket.)
Although it is an uphill battle, the Leader of the Democrats in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, told the press on Wednesday that his goal is to put the measure to a vote next week..
The perpetrator of Saturday’s shooting is an 18-year-old white man identified as Payton S. Gendron, who traveled more than 300 kilometers to a black community neighborhood to carry out the massacre.
The crime is being investigated as a racist and terrorist attack after a manifesto was found in which Gendron claimed that he wanted to kill “all blacks” and, therefore, had decided to carry out the massacre in an area inhabited mostly by citizens of the African-American community.
The shooting claimed the lives of ten people and three were injured. Of the 13 victims, eleven were black..
Gendron was armed and was equipped with a bulletproof vest and a protective helmet to which a camera was attached, through which he broadcast his crime live.
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